B V 







CLELAND BOYD McAFEE 



imMmmrtmmmmmmimmmmmmmmmmgM. 




Class_ i 



Book. : iZ 
Copyright^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



"HIS PEACE" 



ByCLELAND B. McAFEE 

"His Peace" 
Devotional Essay. 16mo, boards, net 25c 

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount 

- - - - net $1.00 

The Mosaic Law in Modern Life 

Addresses on the Ten Commandments. 
12mo, cloth, - net $1.00 

Faith, Fellowship and Fealty 

Part I. Becoming a Christian. 
Part II. Becoming a Church Member. 
Part III. Becoming a Church Helper. 

18mo, cloth, 25c. ; paper, - net 10c 

The three parts may be had separately for the use of 
pastors. Price, paper 5c; dozen, 50c; hundred, net $2.50 

Where He Is 

18 mo, cloth, - net 25c 



"HIS PEACE" 



By 

CLELAND BOYD McAFEE 

McCormick Theological Seminary 




New York Chicago Toronto 

Fleming H. Revell Company 

London and Edinburgh 



Copyright, 1913, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 






New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave. 
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
London: 2! Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 

©CLA347642 

Kof 



" My peace I leave with you : My peace I give 
unto you." — John xiv. 27. 

" Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose 
mind is stayed on Thee; because he trusteth in 
Thee." — Isaiah xxvi. 3. 

" The peace of God, which passcth all understand- 
ing, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in 
Christ Jesus." — Philippians iv. 7. 



Contents 



I. A Word of Purpose . 

II. The Untroubled Heart 

III. The Daily Friction 

IV. The Double Secret 

V. Come Ye Aside . 

VI. The Deepest Unrest 

VII. The Eternal Peace 



9 

ii 

17 
25 
3i 
36 
4i 



[7] 



I 

A WORD OF PURPOSE 

His peace — the peace of Christ ! 
We know not all its secret yet, 
But well we know the strain and fret 
Of hours beleaguered and beset ; 
And we would know the joyous rest 
Of life that thrills with eager zest 
In trusting Him as knowing best — 

Herein is peace — the peace of Christ ! 

Is it an age of doubt or an age of faith ? 
Ten years ago Dr. van Dyke called it one ; 
Dr. Bradford called it the other. Readers 
of their two books will see how both were 
right. The situation has not greatly 
changed. There was never more readi- 
ness to believe what is not fully proved, 
but what experience makes important — it 
is an age of faith. Yet it is still painfully 
common to leave God out of life. What- 
ever faith men have, it has not robbed our 
age of a deep unrest. There is little denial 
of God. There is disregard of Him in- 
stead. That in the wide-spread life of men. 

Therein is the weakness of much Chris- 
tian life as well. The habit of resting the 
[9] 



"His Peace" 



soul on God is left to mystics and the weak. 
The rest of us must make our sturdy fight 
and get out of it what we can. We are 
afraid of anything that smacks of sweet- 
ness in spiritual word or habit. We soon 
get too much of it. There is not the 
quality which we call manliness in it. 
And yet, there is something that our lives 
lack, something which leaves us able to 
fret and worry and be anxious. That 
something, surely, is a clearer realization 
of the present power of Jesus Christ. He 
has become a great, luminous, past-tense 
fact for us. He would become a great, 
illuminating, present-tense power in us. 
The old version made St. John say in the 
first chapter of his epistle, " who loved us 
and gave Himself for us." The revision 
makes him say, "who loveth us and gave 
Himself for us." We have lived under the 
old version, letting His love be a completed 
past-tense fact We need to live under the 
revised version, and know His present love. 
If this little message shall point the way 
for any soul out of worry and annoyance 
to His peace, it will serve its purpose. 
[10] 



II 

THE UNTROUBLED HEART 

His peace — the peace of Christ ! 
The thorn is sharp and pierces sore, 
But grace abounds for thee the more — 

And this- is peace — the peace of Christ ! 

" LET not your heart be troubled." You 
remember what the early Christian replied 
when the persecutor said, " We will destroy 
your religion, we will tear down your 
churches and burn your books ; you shall 
have no way of worship." " You can do 
all fc that," was the reply, "but you must 
leave us the stars." While there are stars 
towards which one may look and which 
will send back God's love in their twin- 
kling and shining, there can be worship. 
And even when the clouds cover the stars 
and the darkness can almost be felt, the 
heart can know that no cloud blots out the 
stars. Above the shadows they are glit- 
tering as clear as ever. 

["] 



"His Peace 



99 



" Looking up to that light which is common to all, 
And round to these shadows on each side which 

fall 
In time's silent circle so varied for each, 
Is it nothing to know that they never can reach 
So far, but that light lies beyond them forever ? " 

Clouds pass ; stars remain. 

Is it not such a truth Jesus teaches 
when He says, "Let not your heart be 
troubled " ? There are upheavals in our 
surroundings. Our circumstances fall into 
chaos. Yet our hearts can remain true 
and strong. All human plans for social 
renovation begin with the wish to change 
man's condition. We want to destroy 
poverty. We must have better homes, 
better ventilation, better streets — and so 
we must. But that will give a peace that 
will last just as long as the condition lasts. 
That is " as the world giveth." He gives 
" not as the world giveth," and adds at 
once, "Let not your heart be troubled." 
He does not promise us surroundings just 
to our taste. Rather, He would make us 
quiet in any surroundings. He does not 
give His servants palaces to live in, but 
makes them live royally in quiet homes, 

[12] 



The Untroubled Heart 

He does not keep them from passing 
through the waters, but promises to be 
with them. He does not take them out of 
the world, but keeps them from the evil. 

That is the difference between His peace 
and the world's peace. The world makes 
peace depend on things or possessions or 
surroundings. He makes it depend on the 
heart and its relation to Himself. Things 
and possessions and surroundings may 
then be what they will ; the heart has 
peace. 

Two illustrations come to mind. First, 
there was the old prophet sent to Nineveh. 
He was never a happy man in anything 
we are told of him, save one. After he 
had felt the burning heat of the sun until 
he was faint, God made a vine grow over 
him, shading and cooling him. The ac- 
count says, " Then was Jonah exceeding 
glad." Why ? Because God is so good, 
and had cared for him so tenderly? Be- 
cause His love is unfailing, remembers a 
whole city and spares it, but does not for- 
get one lone man ? No ; the verse says, 
" Then was Jonah exceeding glad — of the 

[13] 



"His Peace 



>> 



gourd." Ah, then if Jonah loses the 
gourd, he will lose his peace and joy. 
Sure enough, when the gourd withered 
and dried away, Jonah's gladness dried up 
also, and he was the same troubled, un- 
happy man he had been. If his heart had 
gone back of the gourd to its Sender, and 
had learned from it the goodness of a lov- 
ing Father, he would not have lost his joy 
with the fading of this one illustration of 
infinite love. But are there not many 
hearts whose peace depends, not on God's 
presence which never fails, but on the 
presence of things which may fail ? Dr. 
Parkhurst suggests that Adam and Eve 
hid from God behind the very trees which 
He had given them as blessings. It has 
happened many times since. We rejoice 
so much in the gift that we lose sense of 
the Giver, and when the temporal gift 
ceases, our hearts are forlorn, though the 
eternal Giver remains. 

Secondly, there was the Gentile apostle. 
He had a " thorn in the flesh,'* no matter 
what. He was mighty in prayer and he 
pleaded for its removal, but was denied. 

[14] 



The Untroubled Heart 

He was told that he must be all that he 
ought to be in spite of it. Enough grace 
was promised to sustain him in his work in 
spite of the thorn which harassed him so. 
Divine strength is perfected in weakness. 
An old instructor called my attention once 
to a saying which promises this. It is a 
familiar verse and must have accent on 
the last word : " Cast thy burden on the 
Lord, and He shall sustain thee " — sustain 
thee> but leave thee under the burden 
sometimes. Not always, to be sure. 
Sometimes the " burden of our heart rolls 
away." But sometimes He gives us grace 
to bear the burden and leaves it upon us, 
not as our own any longer, but as one 
borne for Him. 

Here is my friend with failing sight — 
could there be a heavier burden? He 
rolls his burden upon the Lord. Then 
what? He continues to grow blind. But 
now it is no longer his own burden, which 
he must bear grittily and bravely. It is a 
burden of God laid upon him to be borne 
for the sake of the God to whom a while 
ago he gave it. Grace comes to him to 
[15] 



"His Peace 



sustain him, according to the promise. 
Unto him " it is given in behalf of Christ 
not only to believe on His name, but also 
to suffer for His sake." 

Or here is a mother whose little one is 
failing day by day. With breaking heart 
she takes the burden to God, placing it all 
at His feet. Then the little one goes 
steadily on to the gates of death, through 
them, and on into the glory that awaits. 
Meanwhile, what of the mother? His 
grace sustains her under the burden which 
is no longer her burden, but one she bears 
for Him. Let her not think she did not 
roll her burden on Him ; let her not fear 
she did not pray as she ought ; let her not 
doubt Him nor reproach herself. Let her 
go her way steadily and firmly, sure of 
His sustaining grace for her life. 

No hand takes the thorn out of the flesh, 
but His grace is sufficient for the man who 
must endure it. 



[16] 



Ill 

THE DAILY FRICTION 

His peace — the peace of Christ ! 

To see Him through the dust and grime of life, 
To hear Him through the din and roar of strife, 
To feel His hand, whoever holds the knife — 

Oh, this is peace — the peace of Christ ! 

I RAN across an expression a while ago 
that has stuck in my memory very tena- 
ciously : " The fretting friction of our daily 
lives." That puts in seven words the 
ground of most unsettlement. Not many 
of us are " done to death by an enterprise 
of the first order," as Dr. Watson insists. 
Most of us can keep our patience and 
cheeriness well in the large things of life. 
It is the nagging annoyances and chafing 
littleness of every day that fret us and wear 
us out. Some of our unhappiest days are 
made unhappy by events that are so petty 
we can hardly catalogue them. It is not 
alone the loss of a large amount of money 
that can unsettle us. It is also the slam- 

[17] 



"His Peace" 



ming of the office door and the carelessness 
of the serving maid and the blotting of the 
manuscript and the miscarriage of a letter 
- — not one of them important in itself, but 
all finding us nervous and irritable and 
ready for wreck. 

Dumas tells of the interview between 
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, when 
the queen learns of the evil things that are 
charged to her and reproaches the king ior 
withholding punishment from the offenders. 
His reply is a chronicle of many an annoyed 
life : " We are bitten, stung, irritated, by 
we know not what enemies. We ferret 
them out expecting to find a serpent, a 
crocodile, to kill or to crush ; and we find 
instead an insect so mean, so base, so des- 
picable, that we dare not soil our hands 
by touching it, even to punish it" And 
much of our unsettlement in heart comes 
from conditions which are so petty, we 
would not alter them if we could. We 
are ashamed and abashed as we think 
what we have done in losing our poise 
and balance over such a thing. 

A few years ago in one of our magazines 
[18] 



The Daily Friction 

there ran a story which showed a man 
strong and self-contained for the most 
part, who one night cast himself down 
under the trees of the orchard, digging his 
fingers into the soil and pressing his face 
painfully against the ground, hating and 
despising himself the while for his weak- 
ness and unmanliness. The worst of his 
sorrow was the evident weakening of his 
own heart and will in the presence of 
trouble which he should have commanded. 
11 The fretting friction of our daily lives " 
— how shall we overcome it? Can we not 
do it by mere strength of will, by steady 
self-control? Yes, sometimes. We yield 
much too quickly to our moods. The 
time comes when we almost defend our 
wrong deeds by saying that we were in 
this mood or that. Yes, but the mood 
needs defense. We waked in the morning 
unsettled and irritable, and we knew it. 
Why then did we not keep close rein over 
ourselves ? Why did we let ourselves go 
when the danger appeared ? The old law 
contained a quaint expression of this very 
duty in its statute which held an owner 
[19] 



"His Peace 



responsible if he knew that his ox would 
gore men, and yet did not restrain him. 
The day when our tempers are ugly and 
dangerous is the day when we may not 
yield without greater condemnation. 

But we cannot always get that self-con- 
trol by mere force of will. There need to 
enter into our lives some larger things. 
We need to feel ourselves in the presence 
of some great steadying power. 

Have you not always had a little touch 
of sympathy with Martha in that colloquy 
with Jesus about Mary ? Suppose Martha 
had done what Mary was doing, suppose 
she had allowed her ministry of prepara- 
tion to go undone, and had setded down 
at Jesus* feet that day — would not many 
have suffered ? And ought she to have 
been rebuked for her busy life, crowded 
and pressed with duties ? Ah, but that is 
not the point at all. Martha is not rebuked 
for that. The account says that Martha 
was " cumbered," annoyed, worried, nerv- 
ous, with much serving. Mary was sitting 
at Jesus' feet. But Jesus was there fbr 
Martha as well as for Mary. She had a 

[20] 



The Daily Friction 

right to the inspiration of His Presence 
just as truly as had Mary. And she was 
leaving out the element of rest and peace 
which was most needed. "That good 
part " — what was it but the joy of the 
presence of Christ ? Martha was none 
too busy, nobody ever is. But she was too 
much burdened, too anxious, too worried. 
It did not quiet her to have Jesus there. 
He was actually just so much more burden 
in her busy life. Paraphrase the reply of 
our Lord : " Martha, Martha, you are busy 
and anxious about a great many things. 
You have many duties to your household 
and your guests, but you lack one thing, a 
better thing than you have, more needed 
than all the rest. It worries you to see 
Mary sitting here at My feet. But what 
you need is to put just that element into 
your own busy life. You cannot sit here, 
for your tasks are other, but you must 
often pass and repass this place. I am 
here for you as truly as for Mary, and you 
may have the steadying influence of My 
presence as you hurry about, saving you 
annoyance, sparing you anxiety, releasing 

[21] 



"His Peace 



your nervous tension." That is the large 
meaning of the few words of Jesus. No 
one who has been a guest in a home where 
he felt his presence added more of burden 
than it brought of joy can fail to under- 
stand His feeling. 

Is there any need of our lives greater 
than the realization of that quieting, steady- 
ing Presence ? We have not too much to 
do. If we feel that we have, let us take a 
fair survey of our lives and ask if there is 
anything we can give up. Are not all 
our labours only opportunities spelled in 
shorter word ? But the harassed life is 
the hampered life. We cannot stop and 
sit at Jesus' feet. (I have always hoped 
that Mary got up at once and took her 
part in the serving.) But as we go about, 
busy and eager, we can catch the inspira- 
tion and peace of His Presence, even 
though we cannot stop to sit down before 
Him. 

One evening when I was urging some- 
thing of this sort at our prayer- meeting, 
my friend, President George B. Stewart, 
was present and added the beautiful word 

[22] 



The Daily Friction 

that the mission of the Church is to keep 
in mind, in this burdened, struggling, 
suffering old world, that Jesus is sitting in 
the midst with His quietness and calmness 
and peace. Certainly it is the service of 
the quiet life that quiets others, and the 
presence of Christ is the assurance of peace 
when we realize it. 

This is the mood in which Tennyson 
was that day when he looked through 
Lockyer's telescope at the star-cluster in 
Perseus. As he turned away from a long 
look through the tube, he said, "One 
doesn't think much of the county families 
after that ! " No, one does not. The 
county families seem to be less important 
than they were, at least less charged with 
unsettling and annoying power. The 
arching heavens are overhead, the great 
ongoing forces are all about, Christ is in 
the midst and there is reason for a great 
peace. 

Herein lies the cure of our fretting over 

petty annoyances. A larger presence is 

here to overshadow them. As when a 

dear friend comes into the home and we 

[23] 



"His Peace 



99 



so rejoice in his presence that we feel it 
unworthy and impossible to chafe over 
little things made the smaller by his in- 
spiration. And when we read our daily 
annoyances as elements in a service which 
we are rendering to Him whose presence 
dignifies life, they cease to be petty, they 
cease to be so annoying. We rise from 
the friction of daily life into its freshness 
and power. 



r*4i 



IV 
THE DOUBLE SECRET 

His peace — the peace of Christ ! 

The work not done may not destroy 

The work already laid aside. 

His treasury well-bolted stands and barred, 

And that is safe whate'er betide — 
In this is peace — the peace of Christ ! 

I KNEW once with the intimacy of a 
son, a sturdy, tender man, whose life was 
spent in a college presidency. Sometimes 
I have thought him the sturdiest man I 
ever knew, so splendidly did he override 
every difficulty and face every dilemma. 
But sometimes he seemed to me all heart 
and feeling, so did evil hurt him and 
wrong sting him. At these times he 
seemed aquiver with exposed nerves. 
But I do not remember, in a long ac- 
quaintance, that I ever saw him unmanned 
or oppressed into unpeace. No doubt in 
his younger days he was so, but I knew 
him in his riper years, when he was climb- 
ing up the steeper heights where the 

[25] 



"Hts Peace 



sudden flash of glory enveloped him and 
left the hearts of his lovers aching. 

I believe I know his secret — a double 
one. And this is it. One day the presi- 
dent deputed me to secure the facts of 
some especially disheartening failure, 
wherein a trusted student had sadly 
betrayed his trust. When I went to him 
and told him the tale, myself sick at heart 
and discouraged, I could see how it hurt 
him, and that he was suffering. But, 
presently, after a moment's silence, I heard 
him say, almost to himself, " After all, it 
pays ! " and he had tears in his voice and 
eyes. I looked, and he held in his hands 
the alumni roll of the college. He had 
risen above that one failure and had rested 
in the joy of service already blessed. 
Many times I saw him claim the peace of 
service, and that is part of the secret of 
his peace. 

And the other part ? Well, he used to 
come in, tired of body and wearied of mind, 
go to his study with a step that was eager 
and yet jaded ; there was a familiar click 
as the key turned in the lock, and I knew 

[26] 



The Double Secret 

if I could look into the quiet room I should 
see that tall figure kneeling before the 
great chair, his face buried in his hands. 
And if I had had eyes to see, as he had 
heart to feel, I should have beheld the 
ministering spirits of God sent to quiet 
and soothe and rest the man who was 
casting his burdens where he was bidden — 
upon the Lord. He would come out from 
that room of prayer with a new light 
in his eye, and with a new spring in his 
step, a rested, refreshed man. It was the 
peace of trust. Those concerns that were 
troubling him became God's concerns — 
how then could they burden him ? 

That is the double secret of many a life 
of calm peace — service and trust. 

Yet that does not mean drowning sor- 
row and annoyance and anxiety in work, 
so that we shall forget them. That is a 
remedy for some ills, but it is not a lasting 
one, for the " old sorrow " will tc wake and 
cry." The peace that comes from service 
grows out of the thought of all life as a 
time of labour — not for an end of our own 
choosing, but for ends of God's choosing. 

[27] 



"His Peace 



>> 



" Ye know that your labour is not in vain 
in the Lord." Yes, in the Lord. That is 
the point to which Jesus would lead us. 
Our labour is often wretchedly in vain in 
itself, or for our own ends. Our unhappi- 
ness grows out of looking at labour from 
that side only. There were ends w r e 
wanted to gain, and we fail in them. 
Peace comes from looking at labour from 
God's side, and seeing how His ends are 
never defeated. Failures in our plans are 
the incidents in God's plans which are 
moving on to success. 

You have no doubt seen Dr. Lyman 
Abbott's word, that Jesus always treated 
death not as the end of life, but as an in- 
cident in life. It is a wise word, and it can 
be said about failures and defeats in the 
Lord's service. They are never the end of 
the service ; they are incidents in it. Our 
hopes may be dashed, our plans may mis- 
carry, but the eternal hope and that infi- 
nite plan in which we all have part cannot 
fail of accomplishment. 

We often miss the point of our lives, as 
the disciples missed the point of Jesus' life. 

[28] 



The Double Secret 

They thought the crucifixion meant wreck 
— and it did mean wreck for their plans 
and ideas. So they were dazed and sad. 
But when, later, they learned God's pur- 
pose for His life, they found the crucifixion 
an incident in the success of that purpose. 
Defeat, from their point of view, was suc- 
cess from God's point of view. And then 
peace returned to them when they came 
to God's point of view and saw that none 
of His plans meet final defeat 

Do you not see, then, where lies the 
peace of service ? Here is vast work to 
be accomplished. Help is everywhere 
needed. Have my efforts in one place 
been unavailing ? Do I seem to have ac- 
complished nothing ? Let me be sure that 
my labour is not in vain in the Lord, and 
that no amount of seeming so makes it so. 
Let me take up my further task and render 
my further service cheerily. Let me gain 
new joy from service that has been blessed. 
Shall I forget the alumni roll because a 
present student fails? No; " after all, it 
pays." Thus we may come into the peace 
of service. 

[29] 



"His Peace 



And this is the peace of trust as well. 
When we were children, we were allowed 
to hold the buckle end of the reins during 
the ride with parents, but there were 
father's hands over ours. There is a 
mighty hand nearer the bits than ours. 
The guidance of the world, the driving of 
its forces — that is not our task. Our part 
is much smaller than that. We learn to 
do our part and trust Him who holds the 
whole. Dr. Deems taught us to say : 

" That man is blest 
Who does his best 
And leaves the rest." 

And that is true. What the man does, 
and what he leaves, belong to God. Thus 
we may come into the peace of trust. 



[30] 



COME YE ASIDE 

His peace— the peace of Christ ! 

To go aside with Him, 

And let the world run on, 

As though we had not been — 

To trust the Hand that covers ours 

And feel that all is well ; 
It brings His peace — the peace of Christ ! 

It is no small blessing to a busy life to 
be laid aside from all work for a time, and 
to be compelled to look on the world's rush 
and hurry from one side. When we are 
part of the working force, we are in con- 
stant fever of eagerness to be doing. Then 
there comes a sickness that lays us aside, 
or a dear one is laid low with a conta- 
gious disease and we are shut in from the 
world for a while. It does not come to us 
and we cannot go to it. But we can see how 
it goes on, and can catch at least the echo 
of its running. The blessing of such seclu- 
sion is a double one. First, it shows us how 
much greater the work is than we supposed. 
[3i] 



"His Peace 



We thought it could not get on without us. 
And it does get on. It is too large and 
great and important to depend on one man 
or one family. It finds others to take our 
places and goes on. The church services 
are held, and the school is open, and the 
store does business, and the community 
misses us and — goes on with its life. Some 
say, That is discouraging and not cheering. 
Only from a wrong point of view can it 
look so. Let us word it to ourselves this 
way instead : " The work which I have 
been engaged in is part of a great purpose 
which is larger than my work, and greater 
than I. That purpose does not depend on 
me, but it can use me. While I am part 
of it, I am important ; but I am not so 
essential to it that it rests on me. It can 
be accomplished without me." The man- 
ager of a great business said once that he 
always kept two men in line for every im- 
portant place, so that if one dropped out 
another could be put in. That is because 
the great business is too large to hinge on 
one man who cannot be fully counted on. 
So are the great purposes of God much too 

[32] 



Come Ye Aside 



large for us. And yet most of our unhap- 
piness in life comes from fearing that failure 
may follow our lives. We cannot spare a 
moment from business or our position. 
We feel that if we do some great damage 
may come. Our lives gradually pass under 
a burden of concern for our tasks. But 
failure cannot follow our lives if we are part 
of the great purpose of God. Our worry 
and lack of peace come rather from mag- 
nifying ourselves than from magnifying 
our service. 

The second blessing of seclusion is 
that from it we can go back to our work 
more eager to do it well. If it is so large 
it will be worth while to do the largest 
possible share of it. We may not work 
nervously or anxiously, as though it de- 
pended on us. Its moving on without us 
forbids that. And therefore we may work 
eagerly and hopefully,— eager to put our 
largest labour into it, hopeful of largest 
results from our labour. To a petty task, 
we might return with a sense of despair ; 
to a great task, we return with a sense of 
victory. 

[33] 



"His Peace 



Out of such seclusion ought to come 
deep peace for us. Of course, there may- 
be lesser odds and ends which are not so 
well done by others as by ourselves. The 
house is not kept so clean. The store is 
not so attractive. The service is not quite 
so exact. But the great, important work 
does not falter ; it goes on ; and we learn 
from it that humility which is the beginning 
of peace, God's peace. 

But what if we do not return ? What if 
the voice of our Lord calls us to come 
aside from the busy rush of life, not to re- 
turn to it ? Why, then, we hear Him speak 
to us as He spoke to Moses, His servant 
whom He loved, who had not yet finished 
what he felt to be his work, but who was 
called to leave his people and go aside 
from them up into the mountain, to be 
alone with God. Before he had left the 
earth he waited a space there in the seclu- 
sion and saw all the great future to which 
his work was leading. It was something 
to have done what he had done. The 
work accomplished was ground for joy. 
But the work accomplished was as nothing 
[34] 



Come Ye Aside 



to the work which had just begun and was 
still going on. Our final seclusion, when 
we are shut out from the world's tasks, 
may be made our time of mountain vision, 
when we look not simply back upon what 
we have done, but out upon what the 
world is now doing, and on to what shall 
yet be done in the power which has helped 
our own lives. There on the mountain 
top, which men call a bed of final sickness, 
or a room of seclusion, or the encroachment 
of old age, we pause for a while before we 
pass on into the glory that awaits. It is 
as though our boat had sailed in out of the 
storm, under the lee of a sheltering cliff, 
and had a bit of sea yet to pass before it 
came to the final harbour. On that moun- 
tain top let there be no fretting nor worry, 
but the quietness of a peaceful heart. 



[35] 



VI 

THE DEEPEST UNREST 

His peace — the peace of Christ ! 
To take our sin and all our shame, 
Our weaknesses, our faults, our blame, 
iVnd set against them all His Name — 

Oh, this is peace — the peace of Christ ! 

Deeper than all else lies the unrest of 
sin. How can men say it is not real ! As 
for us, our hearts refuse to rest in the soft 
denials of that which upheaves us so. 
There are times when we are out of har- 
mony with law and with love. There are 
times when there is such jangling as grates 
on our ears. We were feeling so secure 
in the mastery of our evil habit ; we re- 
strained the hasty word ; we checked the 
unworthy thought. And then one black 
day it came again and we seemed to have 
made no advance after all. Our tongues 
could be as venomous as ever ; our minds 
could be as fertile of evil thoughts as ever ; 
the old, bitter quarrel awoke and was as 

[36] 



i 



The Deepest Unrest 

wide-eyed as ever. Is there outlook for 
anything different ? Or back yonder is a 
sin, repented, confessed to God, made 
right so far as we could ; but still there. 
We cannot look back without seeing it. 
It burdens and clouds the present hour. 
Shall we never be rid of it ? Or that fail- 
ing, falling one so near to us ; he sins so 
willfully, so persistently. We do not trust 
even his spasms of grief now. We have 
lost all hope for him. We have struggled 
with him, we have prayed for him, w r e 
have helped him over and over. It has 
come to nothing. Will he ever be stopped 
and saved from his sin ? 

Such experiences are the whirlwind of 
the soul. No human word brings peace. 
The tried soul scorns the pleasant word 
that sin is nothing at all. It wants relief, 
not subterfuge. 

Well, there is a peace of God for that 
storm also. If sin is terribly real, salvation 
is blessedly real. Over against the horror 
of evil stands the hope of the atoning 
Christ. There is more than figure of 
speech in the Greek story of the waters of 
[37] 



"His Peace 



Lethe. It has been caught up in the 
Christian hymn of the fountain filled with 
blood, in which a man may plunge and 
lose his guilty stains. No man is profound 
enough to explain how it is done. We 
catch faint glimpses of its method, but as 
we go on we learn more fully its meaning. 
And its meaning is that Christ comes to us 
in our sin and makes it first loathsome to 
us, and then impossible. Our hearts re- 
volt against it, and if we fall into it we do 
not know the old love for the sin. The 
first effect of the coming of Christ into a 
sinful life is to make it the more wretched. 
The low life never looks so low as in sight 
of the highest ideal. But after that 
wretchedness, and in the midst of it, comes 
the peace of the struggle towards the 
higher ideal. The dead past is left to 
bury its past sins. We who have been 
dead in sin have become dead unto sin. 

It is this that the Apostle means when 
he exclaims, " Therefore, being justified by 
faith, let us have peace with God, through 
our Lord Jesus Christ." We have always 
read that in our familiar version, "We 

[38] 



The Deepest Unrest 

have peace with God." But after all no 
one, not even our Lord Himself, can give 
us peace until we are ready to have it. In 
the gift of peace there are always two 
parties, the one who gives and the one 
who receives. And he who will not re- 
ceive blocks the way of him who would 
give. So the Apostle speaks a sound truth 
when he says, not that we have peace, 
but let us have peace. Let us front our sin 
with the assurance of our Saviour. Let us 
front the failure of ourselves, or our loved 
ones, with the final overcoming power of 
Christ. 

Three verses come to our help here in 
declaring the ability of Christ at our point 
of need. First, the great verse from the 
Hebrews, " He is able to save to the utter- 
most all who come unto God by Him," — 
His ability meeting us at the entrance of 
the Christian life. Secondly, another verse 
from the Hebrews, " In that He Himself 
hath suffered, being tempted, He is able 
to succour them that are tempted," — His 
ability following along the path with us. 
Then the greatest verse of all, with which 
[39] 



"His Peace 



Jude closes his letter, " Unto Him that is 
able to guard you from stumbling and to 
set you before the presence of His glory, 
without blemish, in exceeding joy" — His 
ability pledged to the consummation of 
His work in us, until we, even we who 
have such stain of sin, such marks of fall- 
ing, shall yet be presented faultless in His 
presence ! This is the path to peace in 
the midst of the deepest unrest, the unrest 
of sin. 



[40 j 



VII 
THE ETERNAL PEACE 

His peace — the peace of Christ ! 

To hear His voice at last say, Come ! 
To see His face and quick to be at home — 
To cast our crown before His feet, 
To know ourselves in Him complete — 
And then to serve with no disquiet pressed, 
To do His will and find in it our rest, 

This must be peace — the peace of Christ ! 

WE are often reminded of the " present 
tenses of the blessed life.'' " He that be- 
lieveth hath eternal life" — not, shall one 
day reach it. " Now are we the children 
of God " — not, we may after a while attain 
to it. And more and more, we are finding 
our joy in the assurance that God's plan 
for eternity is already begun in us. At the 
last, we are to be like Christ, and while it 
seems absurd as we know ourselves that it 
shall ever become fully true, yet even now 
we can rejoice in the faint beginning of 
that likeness. There are some things 
which He hates which we also hate, some 

[41] 






"His Peace 



things which He loves which we are com- 
ing to love. Dimly and feebly, His light 
begins to shine in us. In those faint out- 
lines is the promise of the full likeness. 

So it is with the eternal peace. We 
have the beginning of it now. Its future 
fullness will be the growth of what we 
now have, its hindrances all removed, its 
spirit never broken. We know nothing 
about the future which is not first worded 
to us in terms of the present, save that it 
is hinted that the reality is beyond our 
human speech. Yet whatever that eternal 
peace may be, its hither end is here in our 
hearts. 

Think what it will mean to have a sense 
of perfect safety, together with perfect free- 
dom. Do you not see it in the familiar 
word about the New Jerusalem, with its 
walls and open gates ? In Dr. van Dyke's 
beautiful and suggestive story called " The 
Mansion," which is only the telling of a 
real dream whose dreamer has always 
counted it a vision, there is one mistaken 
note. When John Weightman came near 
the city, " the wall of the city was very low, 

[42] 



The Eternal Peace 

a child could see over it, for it was made 
only of precious stones, which are never 
large." But when John the Beloved saw 
it the city had " a wall great and high," 
not made of precious stones, though its 
foundations were adorned with them. The 
Apostle's vision meets better the need of 
our hearts. The city has its massive walls. 
And that means safety. There was no 
city of the day of the Revelation which 
knew any other secret of safety. Let the 
wall be heavy enough and high enough 
and the people settled securely within. 
Then the figure swiftly changes. The 
walls are not prison walls ; they shut no 
one in from freedom. There are gates, 
gates of pearl, but they are never 
shut at all by day, and there is no night 
there. Perfect safety with perfect freedom ! 
How little we know of that here ! How 
rich a freightage of peace it bears us so far 
as we know it ! 

For we know the beginning of it here. 

Any man knows something of it when he 

passes from the struggle for salvation into 

quiet trust for salvation. While we seek 

[43] 



"His Peace 



5? 



to save our lives there is strain, sometimes 
there is despair ; but when we learn that 
our life is hid with Christ in God, we come 
into peace and into a great, new liberty. 
We walk no more in fear, but in love and 
confidence. Thus we learn the first lesson 
of the eternal peace. We are safe, and 
we are free. 

Think what it will mean to end the fight 
with sin, and to end it not by fleeing, but 
by victory over it. I have a friend who is 
in the thick of the world's fight to-day, 
and has a keen zest for it, revelling in his 
chances to strike hard blows for God. The 
other day he came to mind when I read 
the story of a young Puritan dying on the 
field of Marston Moor, over whom Crom- 
well bent, saying : " My lad, I see there is 
something on thy spirit ; what is it ? " 
The lad replied, " That I have not been 
able to do more for God in this fight .1" 
That is the spirit of my friend. He looks 
with no joy to ending the fight. No, but 
what fight? Is there no joy in feeling 
that the fight will be no more with those 
passions and desires and motives and dis- 

[44] 



The Eternal Peace 

trusts which have made us so far unfit for 
the true service of our Lord ? What other 
warfare we may be privileged to wage, 
we know not. We read with joy that " His 
servants shall serve Him." We have not 
really done that here, because so much 
time and strength have gone into the inner 
fight. End that, conquer sin at last, leave 
it outside those open gates, open to us and 
barred to it — and then we can serve Him, 
then we can run the errands of His universe 
if He commissions us. It is not death that 
works this change, and gives us this victory. 
Death has no magic power. It is what 
comes with death, the setting of our spirits 
free for the vision of His face with its trans- 
forming work, making us like Him. In 
that vision we win the victory over sin and 
are ready as conquerors to join His hosts 
for eternal service. But we serve then with 
eternal peace in our hearts. 

Think of the peace which comes from 
leaving behind all sorrow and pain and 
tears and death. We dread them all ; we 
shun them all. Yet all have met us, or 
await us still. And all have wrought their 
[45] 



"His Peace 



helpful work in us and for us. They asked 
an old saint what he would give up last in 
his memory of life, as he measured it by 
reasons of gratitude. He answered, " My 
sorrows ! " Then he added that they had 
brought him his greatest comfort. Well, 
when the sorrow is over and the comfort 
remains, when the pain is ended and relief 
remains, when tears are over and the 
smile remains, when death is past and 
life is found — how shall one say what that 
will mean ? Most of us have far more dis- 
tress in what we dread than in what we 
undergo. What comes is not so bad as 
what may come. We hold all by so 
slender a thread, — who knows when it 
may break! Our path lies over ice so thin, 
— who knows if it will bear our weight I 
And even when we can see no cause for 
fear when we look about, there comes 
into our very happiest hours sometimes a 
sickening feeling that this cannot last ; it 
is too ideal, too perfect, too beautiful ! So 
often that fear is realized. But now, think 
of all that as past, think of looking for- 
ward not to some dead level of existence, 

[46] 



The Eternal Peace 

but to a future full of surprises, of unex- 
pected experiences, of new revelations and 
new services — but with no pain, nor sor- 
row, nor tears, nor death ! Will there not 
be peace in an eternity like this ? 

But it all comes to its climax in the fact 
that we are to be with Him ! We do not 
know what that means, when we try to 
word it. Our minds do not understand 
it ; trust our hearts for that. We are like 
country children whose father is in the city 
and has there made for them a home which 
only awaits 'their coming. They do not 
know what is there ; the experience they 
have had has only left them dimly aware 
of the meaning of the word he sends. But 
central in all their thought, underrunning 
all they expect, reassuring all their ques- 
tioning, is the fact that their father is there, 
and they are to be with him. We are like 
them, but we are unlike them, for there 
await us no disappointments, no disillu- 
sionments. They may stretch their imag- 
ination beyond the reality; the half has 
not been told us. Eye hath not seen, nor 
ear heard, neither hath entered into the 

[47] 



"His Peace"" 



heart of man the things which God hath 
prepared for them that love Him. The 
central fact for us also, underrunning all we 
expect, reassuring our questioning, is the 
fact that our Father is there, and we are to 
be with Him. We are to see the face of 
Him of whom we have thought, for whom 
we have sought to live. Seeing His face, 
and made like Him, we shall know the 
peace of God that passes all understand- 
ing, which shall keep our hearts through 
all eternity in Christ Jesus. And so, we 
shall enter fully into His peace. 



Printed in the United States of America 



[48] 



JUN 10 1913 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Nov. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

III! Illl! Hill lllli III 





017 053 338 f 






